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Primal Foundations Podcast
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Primal Foundations Podcast
Episode 46: World Carnivore Month 2025 with Casey Ruff
Happy World Carnivore Month!
Casey Ruff returns to the Primal Foundations podcast as our first-ever triple guest, sharing his transformative journey with the carnivore lifestyle. In this episode, we uncover the surprising origins of World Carnivore Month, an initiative that has grown into a global movement celebrating the benefits of a protein-focused diet. With nearly six years of experience, Casey, a seasoned personal trainer and nutrition coach, explains how a low-carbohydrate approach can revolutionize endurance training and weight loss. We dive into the vibrant carnivore community, the importance of raising awareness, and how Casey helps guide those curious about this lifestyle. Addressing common concerns like cholesterol, we challenge conventional dietary wisdom with insights from experts like Dr. Ovadia and Bill Schindler, exposing the stark contrast between processed foods and the vitality of a carnivore-based diet.
Casey also shares practical tips for staying carnivore while traveling, from finding quality beef options to using McDonald's burger patties as a quick fix. Whether you're a dedicated carnivore or just exploring new dietary perspectives, this episode is packed with inspiration and actionable insights.
Connect with Casey:
IG: @caseyboundlessbody
www.myboundlessbody.com
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Instagram: @Tony_PrimalFoundations
Website: Primalfoundations.com
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All right. Today we are making history. Not only is Casey Ruff the first guest on the Primal Foundations podcast, you are the first triple guest. Now, at this point, oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:Making history, your boys. In Chicago, the Bulls were famous for their three-peat. There you go, yeah, I contacted you.
Speaker 1:I was like, hey, we need to do a World Carnivore Month mini episode. You're like, hey, we need to do, like a car, world carnivore month like mini episode. You're like, uh, yes, we're doing that. But yeah, I feel like we should. We should talk about world carnivore month. We're starting to get to the tail end. It's sort of the end of January. A first question to you. Let's see if you know this. I'm quizzing you who was the originator of world carnivore month and what year did it start?
Speaker 2:That is a really good question, man. I come under prepared. I'm going to make a guess. I believe it was Dr Sean Baker and I want to say the year of origin would have been 2020. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:You got one one out of two, for sure. Sean Baker correct. According to a few different sources it's. I didn't know that, no way I would have. I would have guessed it was 2020 as well. Wow, because he came out with, uh, one of his episodes in 2019. I didn't know he was. You know, hey, hashtag world carnival month since 2018. So according to a couple sources in chat gpt, that is correct wow, there you go.
Speaker 2:Wow, and wasn't it a response to vganuary?
Speaker 1:I could be and I don't know that one.
Speaker 2:That's a little ad on there he's such a I mean he's such a like like I don't know. He just kind of does things the opposite to what everybody else does. So it seems like if he was like antagonizing vegans the way that only sean baker can do in the best way, like I, I feel like it was. It was that reason that he started it, but I could be wrong I, I think he has, uh, he's.
Speaker 1:I tell people all the time I'm like that's the best content. You just show a video of something crazy like, some crazy like food thing or veganism, or whatever. He's just sitting there with the machete just pounding down steak. It's there. You know, you, you watch this, I'm gonna do my thing. Uh, yep, great content.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's the best. That steak always looks just primo too.
Speaker 1:It's so good for some of the listeners, if you want to just give just a you know a quick background about you, know your profession, what you do and then what the heck even got you into the carnivore space yeah, for sure, man.
Speaker 2:Um, I just have to too. It's an honor to be on the show again. I listen to every episode that you do and I love your content as well. You're doing an awesome job, so I'm honored to be here. I have to just tell you this this is funny. My wife asked me this morning like what do you have going on today? And I'm like I'm going to be on a podcast a little Tony. He's like she's like, oh, the kettlebell guy. I'm like, yeah, the kettlebell guy. So that's that's who you are around here. Okay, cool, I will take that title for sure. I figured you would own that for sure. Yeah, exactly, uh, yeah, so I've uh, my name is Casey.
Speaker 2:I've been a personal trainer for coming up on 18 years now. Um, I got into the industry in 2007, worked for a large corporation managing a program that used metabolic carts, which is a way to measure how people utilize and burn their calories. Classically, that's like a VO2 max kind of test, or a resting metabolic test, if people are familiar with those and through doing that for a number of years and eventually getting certified as a nutrition coach, started giving nutritional advice to people, and ultimately, most of that advice would fail. You know, through doing the kind of metabolic assessments that we were doing, we were finding that we could manipulate the calorie burn that especially endurance athletes would be able to perform which is how I met you. Athletes would be able to perform, which is how I met you and you know we kind of started working together is understanding that if you can fuel an endurance athlete on fat versus fueling them on carbohydrates is like the classical kind of thinking that endurance athlete can last much longer doing what they love to do and they can rely on their stored body fat, which we have far greater quantities of fat than we do of carbohydrates to use, and so I understood those benefits and eventually doing weight loss contests that the club forced us to do.
Speaker 2:Um, we started to have really good success with people doing low carbohydrate diets, and so I got introduced to that and wanted to know more about that than any of the other personal trainers. Uh, if you're in the low carbohydrate and ketogenic space long enough, you start hearing about this other subset of people that are not just doing low carbohydrate, they're essentially doing no carbohydrate diets, carnivore diets, and so I heard about that. I thought it was completely nuts. We mentioned Dr Sean Baker. I'd listened to his episode on Joe Rogan, which I thought was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard in my life, ended up turning it off and you know, it wasn't until several months later, when you start to hear about other people doing the diet, and to much success that I wanted to try.
Speaker 2:So I tried the carnivore diet in April of 2019 and really just haven't looked back since then.
Speaker 2:So I've been carnivore for nearly six years now and it's really interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if you've observed this or not, but in the time that you've been in the space as well, I feel like you know, three, four years ago, you just you feel completely nuts telling somebody about a carnivore diet and I have to say, like in the last month or two, I have met strangers, like people my hairstylists or, uh, people at the hockey games or I somebody mentioned it when I was at the water fountain where I get my spring water like people are talking about it and they know about carnivore and it doesn't feel that insane. Like literally just got my haircut with a new stylist and told her we do some like really unconventional diet stuff and I said I work with carnivore diets. She's like, yeah, I've heard of that and didn't really like give it that much of a of a like a shock. If that makes sense, and so it's. It's kind of cool to know that it has. Um, you know, the message has gotten out there. More people know about it, so it's kind of a cool time to be working in this space it's.
Speaker 1:It's funny. I actually just got my haircut this morning for my barber. Uh, shout out josh, prohibition, barbershop chicago. He's like, he's like dude, he's like man, your beard looking good. He, what do you put in this thing? Beef tallow, like what's going in here? I was like yeah, man, and he was asking me too today. He was like, hey, man, like I heard, like should I be putting beef tallow in things? Should I be doing this? And I'm like we just kind of like cutting my hair conversation. I'm like he goes, I've been doing a lot more meat and protein and just eating a lot cleaner.
Speaker 1:I'm like the biggest thing is like not for nothing, just anything that's packaged and has a list of ingredients, things that are in the cupboards that is not like a seasoning or a salt or whatever. Like you really just get rid of those kinds of things and just really, if you can freeze your meat things out of the fridge, cook yourself and obviously like indulge on certain things If you want. I'm just like just eat like good sources of protein, good fat, and you're gonna feel better. He goes I, the cleaner I eat, like the more productive I am, the better I feel. Um, so all of those things.
Speaker 1:But I was at, I was very lucky I got to go to, uh, carrie mann's um healing humanity, uh kind of like premiere, uh in like convention I would say it was. And everybody there was like, oh, how long have you been on carnivore? Like I'm like five. For me it's like five years now. Like wow, that's amazing, I'm three years in, or I'm two years in, or I'm one year in, or I'm, you know, 10 years in. I'm just like Jesus it's. It was so cool just to meet all those people in the region. And again, the heavy hitters were there. You had the carnivore doctor, you had Kiltz, you had Tony Hampton I almost said Tony Robinson, not Tony Robinson.
Speaker 2:Tony.
Speaker 1:Hampton was there and yeah, it was just everybody and you just keep having the stories and the stories and the connections. I was like this is super cool and that's another reason why I wanted to do something about the world carnivore month, because I haven't been posting a lot. Like everybody knows, I'm at my work, my family, my community, they know it's like. Oh yeah, tony does carnivore, he eats sticks, like that's him. But I've been just posting a lot of like fitness podcasts, a lot of training, strength training, but I'm like man, my roots are in carnivore Like and I need to like start putting this stuff out. But you know why? Why do you think it's important to even have a month dedicated to to the carnivore diet?
Speaker 2:That's. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I, when I kind of looked at it this month, I've never done as much content around it. I obviously kind of same kind of thing. Like people know me for being carnivore and all my hockey buds and obviously people on social media know me for that, but I hadn't ever been like very consistent with certain things.
Speaker 2:I remember one time, um, I sat down, I went out to lunch with one of my clients who was, um, he took me out because he wanted to kind of change his diet.
Speaker 2:We'd been doing personal training and I remember he sat me down and like really questioned me, like why did you not really tell me about this carnivore stuff? Um, and I I took it pretty hard, like thinking like it's, it's weird to be in an unconventional nutrition space and as much as I, you know, don't want to be obnoxious with content and, and you know, tell people they should change their diet. It was also very kind of cutting to have somebody that I knew and trusted and work with and he trusted me that was saying like why, why, why didn't you never? Why didn't you ever tell me about this? Like I could have used this, and so try to be a little bit more conscious about it. And yeah, this January came around and I just decided like every day for this month I'm just going to put something out there, like one post a day. I actually have everything like mapped out.
Speaker 2:I have here like a whole calendar of like everything I wanted to, you know kind of post about in different concepts. And yeah, I do think it's. I do think it's important to get this kind of stuff out there and show people that there is a subset of people that are doing this. These are people that have suffered with something to the point that they would even be willing to consider this or try this um, you know this only eating meat thing, um, and yeah, so it's been, it's been fun, it's been fun to kind of try to share something every day, and I do think it's a it's cool that we have this time.
Speaker 2:I just use it as an excuse to like be really like mindful about being consistent and posting about it in any which way and just letting people understand that there is ways to do it. It's not going to kill you. Most people I think you're right Like do understand that when they eat more meat and animal products, they do feel better. They just might feel weird about it or feel they're harming the environment or whatever. They might, you know, not poop ever again or might have a heart attack or something. So, yeah, it's been, it's been fun to just be really consistent and mindful about that, and I do think it is important that we have a time that we can kind of do that and share that message.
Speaker 1:Appreciate. You like sharing that perspective because it is as somebody who you want to help people. You want to be like a fitness coach, you want to be a trainer and you want to help people. You want to be like a fitness coach, you want to be a trainer and you want to help them with their nutrition. And you don't want to push right, you don't want to, you don't want to push too much and and I know we've talked about too it's like sometimes, when you're asking people to change their diet right, it's like asking them to change the religion.
Speaker 1:At at that point, like oh my gosh, like what are you talking about? This is so crazy. Like how can I survive on just eating meat? Uh, when people kind of give you or maybe people are interested or kind of think like it's too restrictive, like this is too restrictive, I'm I'm not going to get my adequate quote, unquote nutrients here Like how do you like navigate that with a client or a prospective person? That's like, hey, I'm thinking about carnivore, but I'm really worried'm going to get scurvy, right.
Speaker 2:Good point, good point. Yeah, I would love to hear your answer to that same question as well. But, frankly, I would probably approach it the exact same way that you approached it with your barber this morning, where it's like do I think most people should try a carnivore diet? Absolutely, I think everybody can try it. I think it's perfectly safe.
Speaker 2:We get in the habit of saying, is it going to fix everything? Like no, it's not going to fix everything, but it does fix a lot of things for a lot of people. And I do think it's an opportunity, you know, having a month where we call it World Carnivore Month and people can feel better about, you know, again, trying this and seeing how it goes for them. But, like I said, like I would probably approach it the same way that you approach it with your barber, by saying, like, if you feel good when you eat more meat and you eat steak and eggs and you feel really great and you know like that, go in that direction, just see what it's like to add more proteins and more fats and have those proteins and fats come in a combination where um nature already provided them for you in animal products. And if you like you know chuck roasts, do that. If you like brisket, do that If you like burger patties, like there's so many different ways that you can do this and approach this and try it.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I would just want more people to kind of connect with that intuitive sense of like.
Speaker 2:I feel like this is good for me and I feel good when I eat meat, like great, eat more of it and see if, you know, you don't really miss the fact that the fiber that you're eating in the form of vegetables is probably not that good for you and may even be causing damage and, if nothing else, it's taking the physical space away from the stuff that really would be more beneficial. What would it be like to take your chicken and vegetables that you've been eating and do less of the vegetables and add in more red meat and do a little bit more of that and see if you really miss all that other stuff that we're told is super healthy for us? So I just think that most people, if nothing else, could be benefited by um pushing in that direction eating more animal products, more proteins and fats in general. Um, and again, I I'd like to hear your answer, but it sounds like you kind of already gave your answer in the way that you approached it with your barber today.
Speaker 1:I that would be the piece. You get the, you get somebody that's kind of like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. And this is where I, I, I take for granted the things that you know, we do. I, I listen to your balanced body. You know radio like it. How many episodes are you in now?
Speaker 1:it's got to be geez ridiculous coming up on 800 yeah jesus, yeah, yeah, I'm like trying to break 50 over, but I take for granted the, the conversations that we have and the people that we talk to. Uh, not for granted, but it's, it's. I understand the knowledge, I want to reach out to the those people, but when you, when you get somebody that's like, well, is it gonna like? How do you know? Well, how do you know this is not gonna harm? How do you know this is not going to harm me? How do you know this is the proper human diet? You know you start to look at hey, you can check out my podcast here's.
Speaker 1:You know Dr Ovadia, right, everybody's like, well, what about cholesterol? Well, I've talked to people who are, you know, a doctor in the space, cardiologists. They don't want people on their operating table like basis of his whole book. You know that is kind of debunking a lot of this thing I look at. You know you've had him on as well. Bill Schindler, right, that's like we have a cardiologist saying one thing Bill Schindler giving us like this evolution of humans, and his point of view is good too, because he, he's like not 100% carnivore. He's like we, we evolved on meat and fat and we, you know, we, we bang two rocks together, we get a knife, and that just changes everything for us comes in fire. We hunt more, we get bigger, we get stronger. You know he, he likes a little bit more biodiversity of different things. But he says like, hey, if I'm going to gonna feed my family the most healthy, bioavailable, nutrient-dense foods I can, and I I gotta eliminate some plants in that aspect, but if I can alter how I prepare them, then I then I'll do that right. So he has totally for me, totally for animal fats, and that. Then you have all these other people from different spaces, other doctors, a Chafee, a Baker, things like that. So I like to lean on them.
Speaker 1:I'm not a scientist by any means, you know. I look at what people have done. The success stories are huge. That's why I loved sitting down at Healing for Humanity, shout out Carrie Mann and all them, and just listening to people's stories and that I that's what makes me like get all jacked up, because it is like we can say science all day, right, but it's undeniable.
Speaker 1:How many, how many people have you heard of? They're like oh, I'm gonna try carnivore for 30 days. Oh, I felt like shit after 30 days. Yeah, I've never, never, never, never, uh, yeah, so I mean that's. Usually my answer is like, hey, just try it out.
Speaker 1:Um, but if people really want to know more, it's like hey, here's, here's this group of people, right, this, I can give you some information. A Ken Berry or what have you? Uh, a Dr, dr kilts? Where these people are, in the space they are, this is their profession, their livelihood, right, they're actually putting, they're going against the grain and putting their like careers on the line, saying, hey, the way you've been doing this for past 50, 100 years is wrong. Like this is where we need to be going. Like fatty red meat, animal protein, animal fat, that's great. All the other stuff.
Speaker 1:To me, I feel like when I walk through I don't, I want your perspective on this too like when you walk in the grocery store, like a big grocery store, and you just like look around and I'm just like, wow, like is this really food? I just walk in and just package, package, package, package, package, and I'm just like okay, and then it's like all the have you talk about this all the time of? Like the fruits and the vegetables, it's so vibrant, it's all these colors, whatever, we don't have it. We go back hundreds of years ago. We don't have access to those kinds of things and if we did, they're not going to be in the quantities that we have now. You know we're overindulging in all these things. We got rampant um issues of chronic illness. It's all lifestyle as well attached to it. But it's like man, I just walk into the grocery store and sometimes I look around and look at people's carts and I don't want to judge, like, but I'm kind of like man, like that's, that's. You just have literally no nutrition in that cart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I it. Yeah, that's such a good point. Once, once you step away from it, you really see it and like, yeah, like it doesn't. It doesn't even shock us anymore that like every handicap space in that store is taken and people, it's almost like there's more people riding around in carts or carting like an oxygen tank with them or something like, yeah, you don't want to judge, but it's hard not to notice, especially once you step away from it and you can see these foods for what they are. I mean, the last store I was at earlier this morning has protein powder that they're trying to sell. You know the benefits of protein and it's like Fruit Loops branded, it's like cereal sugar cereal branded protein powder.
Speaker 2:Like, really, I don't know that that's the best way that we could be getting an essential nutrient.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sucks that these hyper palatable foods that you know when you're eating them, if you're eating a lot of them, they're very addictive, they're very tasty and if you can step away from that, I think a carnivore diet is a wonderful way to kind of get off of those foods.
Speaker 2:You start to realize that very simple foods with really few ingredients are absolutely you know, they don't just taste good, they're. They're nutrient dense, like they make you feel good, they give you energy, they make your skin vibrant, like you feel so much better. You don't miss some of the foods that you thought you could never live without, all those big packaged foods, and you know the breads and the cereals and all the stuff I used to eat. Certainly, like you, you don't really miss those foods the way that you thought, and so, yeah, I think a carnivore diet is a wonderful way to give yourself a chance to, you know, for 30, 60, 90 days, whatever it is, just eliminate some of that other stuff and really overfeed yourself on really delicious, nutrient dense stuff that tastes good, with just a little bit of salt or pepper or whatever Like it's it's. Yeah, you really appreciate foods much differently and a carnivore diet is a great way to experience that.
Speaker 1:Like you were saying earlier, there is a, a that the wheel is turning like we're picking up steam right. More people are talking about it. You know cause you do have like a. Uh, you know a Jordan Peterson, michaela Peterson you know big figures that are like carnivore diet had fixed a lot of things, you know. Now we're we're talking doctors and a lot of people on Instagram and social media. People get interested. All right, january 1st I want to go two feet in. How do I start? Yeah, what what? Yeah, I know it's a loaded question, but like, yeah, like, how do? How do you? How do you start If you're going to like, if somebody's come in?
Speaker 2:no-transcript with somebody, um, probably very similar to what you do when you're doing the same thing. I'm really trying to get it. Uh, somebody's motivation, like, what is your why? You know, tell me why you're wanting to try this. Often, you know, there's a, there's a physical, aesthetic component, which I don't think is a bad thing. People want to look better and, you know, feel better, whatever. But also, like they, you know, we dig a little deeper and they want energy to play with their kids, and you know they're, they're tired already and in a pinch, when they're tired, like they're choosing, you know, pizzas over more healthy foods that take a little bit of thought to, you know, prepare. But anyway, I'm trying to understand somebody's why and then I'm also trying to understand what is their personality type, like, um, we, we change because something sucks bad enough that that we have to change. Essentially, unless we're, like, really inspired by something, it seems like we need, you know, the two by four to the forehead to really like, wake us up and make us think that we need to go through some type of change.
Speaker 2:In a carnivore, different carnivore diet is a huge change for a lot of people. Some people are already kind of close to that. Other people are a lot further away and I want to know is this person somebody who wants to go cold Turkey they're ready to jump right in. Or is this somebody who needs to have like a little bit more of a gradual, um, kind of exposure to what a carnivore diet is? And so I'll explain it to people. Like we have a pool and the pool has the shallow end and it also has, like the 50 foot platform, and you know you can get in the pool however you like. Um, you're going to get wet either way. Whether you're going to jump off the platform or whether you're just going to wait in over time, either way is fine. Jumping right in might be a little bit more painful in the beginning, but you'll get used to the water pretty quick. And so I want to know again what the motivation is. If it's a strong enough motivation, chances are they'll probably want to dive right into a carnivore diet, so to speak.
Speaker 2:And so when we're getting started with people, I think one of the biggest challenges that we have to face is most people are used to having things being very complicated, and one of the beauties, one of the best parts about a carnivore diet it can be very, very simple, as you all know, like I'm trying to help people understand that. You have been on complicated meal plans. You have been on, you know, weighing food or tracking things, and you can continue to do those things if you like. But a carnivore diet, in my opinion, is one of the best parts about it, and where a lot of people get tripped up is the simplicity of like find whatever meats you like. I try to encourage people to do as much red meat as possible, although I often don't even need to try that hard because people will seem to kind of self-select for red meat in general. Um, I try to tell them to find ways to prepare the red meat with things they already have. What kitchen tools do you use? What do you like? What you know, what do you not like? Um, how can we provide education to you know, teach you how to prepare certain foods? Um, and then, yeah, just tell people like, this is the one diet you can really, um, eat a high amount of these foods. It is restrictive in the number of foods that you can have, but it is unrestricted, in my opinion, about how much you can eat.
Speaker 2:And so for people that have been, you know, counting calories, watching their portions, um, just intuitively thinking that they shouldn't eat very much or they need to eat frequently during the day. Trying to explain the difference between what it feels to be full versus what it feels to be fully satiated can be a challenge in the beginning, but really encouraging people to check that out and see what it's like and really stuff themselves with delicious food. Again, I just think it's weird for people to like they think they can eat two burger patties when actually they can eat like three or four. They're used to eating three eggs when it's like, well, can you eat eight eggs? Like, try to have a little bit more. It's just kind of overcoming those things and I'm learning what people already know or think they know about nutrition is kind of the big thing.
Speaker 2:But really trying to convince people that this should be very simple, should be very delicious, it should be very inexpensive, you don't really need to get too twisted up in knots about the quality of the meat you're having and we're lucky in this country that the quality of all of our meat is very, very high. Um, so yeah, as far as that goes, that's kind of a general direction and it's usually like answering individual questions that somebody might have. Again, it's a lot of unlearning and you know, just people being validated to know that like okay, I always knew that I felt good on me. You're telling me I'm not going to die if I do this. Yeah, just kind of giving that permission to people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you tapped into something really great, because you mentioned the aesthetics piece that it's important. Like we're all a little vain, like we want to look good. You know this. I did a podcast with my friends and we talked about like New Year's resolutions were bullshit. I was like it should be all year, like you should be really not just saying, okay, now, because it's this time of the, the earth is in this position, I need to be physically fit, right Like. That's where I'm like, no, it should be all the time.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, you know, this year I kind of like not that I've been yo-yoing a little bit and I've posted it too, like I'm eating really good food, I'm eating carnivore, but I've gone up, but come down, I gone up and gone up, but I felt great the whole time and I'm like you know what? I kind of want to lean out a little bit. I want to lean out a little bit. I have to do some things in April where I need to be a little bit leaner, uh, for those events, and I'm like you know what? I just I want to be a little, I want to be. I float right now at like 17% body fat and I'm like, oh, like I can totally be 15. That's fine and I have that, and that's for me. Um, but my goal is never going to be aesthetics. And you said what's the motivation behind of why you want to look that way? Again, I want to. I have a, I have a certification goal. There's a tangible thing that's attached to it. Yes, do I want to look good at the beach? I'm a we're, we're fitness professionals, we want to. We want to look good, right, we want to. We want to. Nobody's going to take my advice if I'm too weighty, right, if I nothing. So there's that piece to it.
Speaker 1:But my friend Nikki has a great. She mentions this too in the podcast. She makes like this triangle. I've been to her like nutrition workshops and she's not carnivore by any means, but I think it rings true. She like draws a pyramid and at the bottom is all and the biggest chunk is mindset and the middle right is nutrition. At the very, very, very top is training. And she goes everybody starts with the biggest chunk, thinking it's training, I need to work out, I need to go hard, right.
Speaker 1:And then it's like oh, I gotta like restrict everything, I have to be hungry because I'm on a quote-unquote diet, and then you know you get to this point where that's not a sustainable thing, like you can't do that. You're gonna run, run your body ragged just to look a certain way and then, yay, you did it, but you feel like shit, like what's the point? So my goal is, yes, I want to look good, for sure, but it will never be at a sacrifice of function of my body. Can I perform the task? Do I feel good? Can I do my job?
Speaker 1:And that's a big thing for carnivore. For me is it's simple I don't. I don't feel hungry. Like when I tell people they're like and I sometimes I hate saying carnivore diet Cause, then the annotations like oh, like you have to like be very restrictive and like starve yourself.
Speaker 1:No, like I eat as much as I want. If I want to eat, I do. If I don't feel like I want to eat, or or I'm not hungry, I don't eat. If I skip a meal, I am not freaked out. Like, I'm fine, like I have. I've had coffee today. It's a what we got. It's one o'clock out here, right, I haven't eaten a thing all day. I got two pounds of ground beef ready to rip after this episode. So, uh, I mean, and I'm not freaked out. I don't need 17 meals, is 20 snacks in a day.
Speaker 1:But my why will always be can I do I have function in my body? Am I healthy, Am I satiated, am I able to do the things in life? And then aesthetics is the back burner. But that January 1st, like people jump on for aesthetics and they burn out right quick, like what is the why? Why do you want to look that way? And then, when you do look like that because I've done that, I've, I've gotten real lean at one point in my life and I got like abs I'm like oh, hell, yeah, and I didn't do it the right way, I didn't eat enough and when I got there I go. Now what?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, you're a great example of that. I look at um, you know, I think, think about what you just said about the pyramid and the mindset piece, um, and, like I said, I love that episode and you could tell that they weren't like um, they weren't necessarily like into carnivore, but they weren't writing it off either, which I found like really cool. You know that people again are like accepting it, but anyway, I look at you and your life and the different goals that you've had, and doing an Ironman, I think is a wonderful example of that, of like you did an Ironman.
Speaker 2:That was one day that you had to prepare for for a very long time. You did a lot of hard work, but you would be the first person to say, like doing this is not healthy, like this is not good for longevity, like this is just some absurd thing that like literally three drunken navy people talking about like what's the hardest thing to do in kona, and one person said it's swimming between these two islands, which is 2.4 miles, and one person said riding around this island, which is 112 miles, and one person said running a marathon, and they just decided to throw them all together. Like that's how started that like doing that is it's great and it requires all that training and all that stuff. But that is not. That's not good for you, that's not great for your health Like you're not a healthy person, that's not increasing your longevity. And you approached it as such, like I want to do this. I know what it's going to require. I've got the mindset in place to know that once I get this done, I'm not going to do this chronically and I'm not going to pretend that beating myself up running this long is good for me. And you approach it as a life thing. Of course we want to look good and you want to perform for your certifications and all your clients.
Speaker 2:But if you're in this space for long enough, you realize, like, what do I really want? I want to be happy, I want to enjoy life, I want to have good longevity, I want to enjoy my grandkids. It's not about, like, doing this diet temporarily. It's like, no, I want to feel my best and feel optimal, to like try to provide value and make an impact in this life, and I want to do so for as long as possible. And so, yeah, I'd love that you brought in that point.
Speaker 2:The mindset is so key in helping people understand that like, yeah, we can get you to that weight loss goal, we can get you to that wedding that you're preparing for in four months, but like I'll still something I saw on Instagram recently like you don't need 75 hard, you need 365 consistent. I want you to be doing this for as long as possible and if I can get you some reasonable workouts that are challenging and you can do them regularly and consistently for the rest of your life, that's what we're after, more so than like yeah, we're chasing down like a short-term goal that you're right, like like it's. I'm sure how you felt the day you finished the Ironman. It comes and goes like this the next day you're like borderline depressed, like well, that's over now. What the hell do I do with myself? Like people get depressed after big events like that all the time. So having that long-term mindset, I think, is really important.
Speaker 1:One, that's a great. I haven't heard that little saying. But you don't need 75 hard, you need 365 consistent.
Speaker 2:Thank you Instagram. Yeah, hundred and sixty five consistent.
Speaker 1:thank you instagram, yeah yes, thank you, that's a, that's a great one, because I mean you, you, what is sustainable for you, what's going to make you happy? Like, and again that piece of and I always remember that phone call I had with you. Like I remember you stopped the conversation. I was just like the first like touch points we had. You're like, hey, you sound like you want to do this on carnivore, but you're just just looking for permission. I was like, yeah, everybody told me I was going to die. And then you're like you're not going to die, you're fine, you're good, go ahead and do it. I was like, okay, like I was.
Speaker 1:I was like, cause every I had people that wouldn't work with me. They're like, oh no, you're like you're not going to be on my program not eating carbs. You have to have a hundred carbs on the bike at this point and this, this. And I was like I felt so good on carnivore. I'm like I don't want to do that. But now that people want to jump in this or trying it, you know what are some some. I don't want to say hacks, like what it's a what's a carnivore hack, but like what are some tips or tricks that you're like you know when people want to get into carnivore say, like fast food joints or parties or traveling. I, I, you know, I saw you traveling with your I don't know how many dozen eggs, uh hardball days you had in your thing but what are some?
Speaker 1:things that you do to make carnivore easier for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they call it my cholesterol kit. Um, I always get stopped at TSA. They always look through it like this guy's a walking heart attack. Why is there a stick of butter in his carry-on? That makes no sense. Yeah, man, it's a great point.
Speaker 2:The first thing I would say is I want to keep everything as simple as possible for people like we mentioned earlier. So I want to know what are people already doing that they like and understand and know how to do themselves? Let's start there and just do more of those things. It was really like it seemed like way oversimplified advice that I read in a book called Back Mechanic by Stu McGill, where he said, like if you have back pain, like, find the things that make your back feel worse and do those less, do them less times, and find the things that make your back feel better and do those more. And it seems very overly simplistic, but I think that's an interesting principle that we could apply not just to back pain, but things like diet.
Speaker 2:Where are you already having meals that are borderline carnivore, that already make you feel good? A lot of people I know they don't eat carnivore, but maybe they eat a bunch of eggs and bacon over the weekend and I'll always ask them like do you ever think it's weird that like you go the rest of the day after eating eggs and bacon, a big old omelet, and like you're not hungry and you don't need a snack? And they're like oh yeah, I guess I do notice that that's weird. Um, so once you point that out, you just say like, okay, how can you do more of this? Um, a really easy tip I learned this even before carnivore, but it's it's really easy to do with carnivore is search an ingredient, something you want to make. Maybe you already have a bunch of this, or maybe it's something that sounds good. So maybe you search ground beef or Chuck roast or rotisserie chicken or just something like that, and then search also how, whatever method you are, you know, familiar with to cook at home, like maybe that's ground beef and type in frying pan, ground beef, oven, ground beef grill, and then change the search to be the images, so you just can scroll through a bunch of images. It's basically like the kind of food you want to make and whatever way you want to make it, and then, once you like visually, find something that looks really tasty, click on that and see if the recipe looks easy enough for you to follow along. I think visually it's a lot easier to look through a bunch of different recipes and just stay in your own lane. Stick with the things that you already know how to do. Over time, you know, your your skills in the kitchen will expand and you may want to try to find ways to make food differently. So I'll give you a good example of something we've already talked about.
Speaker 2:Sean Baker puts out these videos of this insanely delicious looking steak every single day. He makes the same thing, at least on these videos every single day, and I, you know, watched all these videos and thought to myself like I'm going to do exactly what he does. That looks so good and it comes out exactly the same every time. So I pulled up a YouTube video where he takes you through exactly what he does, and I got all the things to do exactly what he does to make his steak.
Speaker 2:Every day I have a sous vide. I cook my steak for two hours at 119 degrees, and then there's a grill that you can buy that shoots flames from the top downwards that gets up to 1500 degrees, and so every day I take a sous vide steak. Make sure it's warm, I you know, season it, however, like pat it dry and then put it in this grill. Um, the ones that he promotes are like a thousand to $2,000. I found one on Amazon that was like 150 bucks. I've had it for over a year and I can tell you, tony, for over a year I have had steakhouse perfect quality steak every single night. That I only missed one time, when we were in Austin eating at Cooper's where they made the best steak I've probably ever had.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, let's pause real quick on this episode if you haven't listened to our other episodes with me and casey. After hack your health, uh, we went to shout out to, uh, james liebman the carnivorous. He told us you got to go to cooper's, uh, and get the ribeye at a barbecue joint. We're like, oh okay, and we go there and we eat it and I'm like, holy shit, this is like one of the best things so good, good, so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was really fun. Like the next night after we all met up at Cooper's the next night we went to a different place and you mentioned like stories. We sat around a table and like heard everybody's amazing carnivore stories and it was so cool. But, yeah, the food was not nearly as good at that place as it was the time before. Before, and like that whole next day, dude, all I could think about. I told you I was like dude, I'm just thinking about the steak. What's going on?
Speaker 1:so we went back again, we went back again we went back again and they came the next day. Casey's like all right, I'm off the airport. Man, it's great to see you. I was like, hey, guess where I'm at. He's like dude, you're not at cooper, sorry, I'm like I'm at coopers again you, son of a bitch that's so good all right even their seasoning is my favorite seasoning.
Speaker 2:I order it from them, cooper's and their steak seasoning is phenomenal really so yeah, worth it lasts a long time.
Speaker 2:I use it every night, but yeah, anyway, so it's it's. Yeah, it's finding things like that right. Like if this is important to you and you want to change your health. Like you can go to youtube and, like you said, watch some camberry videos. I go on youtube all the time to find, like, what's the best way to cook ground beef, what's the you know something different I can do with a chuck roast, or how can I make this more affordable. Like if it's important to you, you'll spend the time and be able to do that and just just keep it simple. Like I said, and and and, yeah, find, find ways that you already know. And again, over time, you can expand and do different things. Again, over time, you can expand and do different things. The travel one's very interesting. I'll just say, like one of my favorite tips that I shared with people during World Carnivore Month was, yeah, whether it's a hack or not, I think most people should know that, like McDonald's sells burger patties that contain one ingredient and it is beef.
Speaker 2:There's nothing else in it. It's seasoned with salt and pepper. They cook it on a grill that does not have seed oils. This has been confirmed and they don't just have burger patties laying around that are fresh and ready to go. They have to cook them when you order them at the moment, and so it means you have to pull off the drive-through and sit in your car for a few minutes as they're preparing it, but you can get piping hot, delicious ground beef burger patties.
Speaker 2:That are one ingredient that costs a dollar and a half a piece, and most people are stunned when I tell them that. But it's like, yeah, like I don't do that a lot, but if I'm traveling, if I'm in a pinch, um, it happened a few weeks ago where, like, I had a client downtown and I had a hockey game to go to right afterwards and it was like I don't really have time to go back home and go back out again. I'm just going to go to McDonald's and order a bunch of burger patties, and they were delicious, it was really really good, and so just finding little things like that and making it easy for people, I think, is how I try to help people in the very beginning, as far as that goes.
Speaker 1:I think that's great advice because it's like hey, like you may be not be able that day to have the Sean Baker sous vide grilled steak with the hole with the machete in your hand, but if you know you're traveling, you're in a pinch. I do it all the time. I even like, when I walk in to McDonald's now, like this is the only reason I'll go into the McDonald's is for like hey, like I'm running late or I got nothing, um, like I didn't go shopping, like I need to get something you know today. All right, cool. I walk in and she's like four, four quarter pound panties.
Speaker 1:I go, you got it I had my buddy with me from out of town and I'm like, hey, like, uh, we're going somewhere, forget. I was like, yeah, you know, it's like one o'clock. I was like I'm going to get go to McDonald's and get some, uh, some, I call them meat cookies. I'm like I'm gonna get some meat cookies. And he's like meat cookies. I'm like, yeah, you just get the patties, so we go in there. I will actually go four quarter powder patties. I go, yeah, and my buddy's like this is not bad. He's like this is like $4. And I'm like, yeah, it's, it's cheap, it's easy, like it's beef. I just asked for them. I don't do the pepper, I just he just puts salt on it, that's it. And it's super convenient. And again, I don't do it all the time, but if I'm in a pinch, that's the way to go.
Speaker 1:Some jerkies I look at like, after I've gotten into the space of, like I'm thinking like people would just want to grab a slim gym. Like, yeah, I'm carnivore. But like, look at that ingredients list, I'll do like a chomps, like I'll throw chomps or whatever. If I hard boiled eggs, I can bring those too, and just things that are convenient and easy to like. Pop in, not like a whole piping hot dish places, because I think that's the hardest thing. But you like travel with like butter, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll do a stick of butter. I'll do the hard boiled eggs. I think is great. Um, when we were at hack your health.
Speaker 1:you met Audra Coleman right Possibly I got to see.
Speaker 2:She was the one that not only had the dehydrated meat, but she was sharing her dehydrated meat.
Speaker 1:Yes, I met her.
Speaker 2:So, uh, yeah, first of all, if I had that, yeah, if I, if I had a bunch of dehydrated meat, I wouldn't like be walking around a conference sharing it with everybody, as she was very generously, um yeah. So it was so nice of her and I mean, wasn't that amazing to be able to eat that dehydrated meat. That was great. And so, yeah, I'll do the same thing that you do, like I'll have chomps around and I'll have, you know, always have, uh, you know, hard-boiled eggs on hand. But as we speak right now, I I, you know, talking with her and understanding how she does her dehydrated meat, which was absolutely delicious.
Speaker 2:Again, I decided like it's probably worth it for me to invest in another kitchen gizmo. I hate buying new stuff, but I ended up buying a dehydrator. My wife and I are traveling to San Diego this week and so right now in my dehydrator I have a whole like pork tenderloin that I use this like chopping kind of tool that she recommends that cuts through. It's like a paper. It looks like the paper cutter from like elementary school.
Speaker 2:You probably see those all the time with what you do, but it works on frozen meat and so, whether it's you can take like ground beef that's frozen in a tube, it makes really good dehydrated meat. I took a pork tenderloin and just sliced it on up and put it on all these trays in the dehydrator. I seasoned it with Cajun mix and, yeah, I'm going to take a bunch of dehydrated meat with me on this trip. We purposely got an Airbnb that has a kitchen so we can always cook whatever we like, but it's a priority to us, my wife and I, when we go travel, we don't want to like, feel like shit, we don't want to not enjoy the trip because we're eating a bunch of nonsense, and so it's a priority to us to, you know, find places that serve just burger patties or go have a steak or, if nothing else, just fix the food ourselves or bring food with us.
Speaker 2:It's not that big of a sacrifice. It's a little bit weird, but it's pretty easy to do. And again, like I understand, people go on vacations and they want to loosen up their diet but they end up spending all of their time on vacation feeling terrible and their stomach hurts and they feel bloated and like they're hungry and cravings come back and it's like, yeah, I mean enjoy yourself. But enjoying ourselves also means that we take care of ourselves and that way we don't really like deviate from what we know. You know feels good and tastes good. So we just try to make a priority and make it easy for ourself. But yeah, doing like you said, just having those snacks on hand or dehydrated meat has been definitely a go-to.
Speaker 1:for sure, we have, uh, we've both interviewed a Corny Luna, right, she has her own, her own spices. Do you think that you know, when it comes to uh, uh, adding vegetables for like filet, like a garlic, uh a seasoning, uh, a pepper, a hot sauce, is that cheating or is that fine?
Speaker 2:I've always considered a carnivore diet to be what a hyper carnivore is titled in nature. If you say, what is the definition of a hyper carnivore? It is an animal that eats 70 to 75% of their calories from animal products or more. Um, and Bill Schindler was a great example that you brought up and the way he approaches things is like we are omnivores, we can eat a lot of different things, but that doesn't mean that it's like a 50, 50 split and it doesn't mean that we can just eat whatever we want whenever we want and with impunity. Like when he says plants should scare the hell out of you, it's not saying don't ever eat plants, you can't ever eat plants, it's that you they should scare the hell out of you. You should think about you know how, what, what plant foods you're eating, how frequently you're consuming. Was this a food that was available all year round, all the time, or is this like a recent invention? Is this something we have selected and selectively bred to be like full of sugar? Did we always have access to this 365 days out of the year?
Speaker 2:I'm part of Dr Anthony Chafee's book club and so every week we discuss a different book and kind of people all over the world get together and, like you know, throw different ideas around on whatever content we have. We're reviewing and we recently reviewed a book called the Stone Age Diet which was written in the 1970s. The author had some interesting ideas. It probably wouldn't be that that kosher, uh, if it was published in 2025, but, um, it was interesting even back then. And he gave this example and I think it was maybe like a fictitious but just kind of to share the point that, like in the 1910s and 1920s, we started to learn what vitamins were and that vitamins were important for health and our focus kind of shifted to like make sure that you have lots of vitamins. And where do vitamins come from? They come from fresh fruits and vegetables.
Speaker 2:And it gives this story of like a woman walking into a grocery store in New York city in February and looking around for like the fresh fruits and vegetables and saying, like you guys have tomatoes, like I'm just learning that I'm supposed to get my kids tomatoes so they can get vegetables. And the store owner, like looking at her, her like no, that's not a thing, we don't have fresh tomatoes in New York City in February. There's canned tomatoes. You can buy those. And in this example, in the store is also maybe a food distributor who is in charge of distributing food around the East Coast and maybe he thought to himself, like well, wait a second. In Florida they have more tomatoes than they know what to do with and it's like super cheap tomatoes by the barrel down there and again there's so many of them they don't know what to do with them. Maybe, if I figure out driving these tomatoes from Florida up to New York, where people pay 10 times the price, 20 times the price, you know, like transportation wasn't that easy back then and figuring out how to get from Florida to New York with a bunch of tomatoes, you know, probably wasn't that easy.
Speaker 2:But it kind of enforces this, this idea of like. We just have lost a complete sense of like what food should be available year round, and he probably made tons of money by exporting all the tomatoes that they had too many of in Florida and selling them for a handsome price in New York City, drove this idea that you should have fruits and vegetables year round. I asked my grandparents this once did you guys eat spinach when you were growing up? And it kind of surprised me. They said yes and I was like, oh, that's interesting and they're like, but I mean, it wasn't like year round you get it for a month and we'd have spinach and we'd cook it normally, we'd prepare it. We'd have it with a cream sauce which, as we know, a very high oxalate food. If you serve it with a mineral and you cook it and prepare it like, that reduces the oxalate content and the calcium in the cream sauce helps to bind with the oxalates and so you know they.
Speaker 2:They grew up eating seasonally and we just have completely lost that.
Speaker 2:And that's to say things about like fruits and vegetables, not to say anything about the processed garbage that most people are eating all day, every day. So yeah, it's just we just kind of forget that these things shouldn't be consumed all the time. That fructose literally makes us more aggressive and makes us take more chances to get at it, because if we had fructose evolving, it was to make us fat and we needed that, and we may have been in competition with other animals or insects or birds to get at this. You know this fuel source that made us fat, and so we needed to have something in our brains that switched on aggression and you know risk-taking behaviors to make us, like, really motivated to get at this food and make it be really addictive, because it's not all year that you're going to have it and you really need to attack it to make you fat when you can, and we just live in a world where you can do that 365 days out of the year now, so it's just different context.
Speaker 1:One I have to mention. I wanted to talk about this too. It's like, you know, and it's just going to be hard for people that have families, like if this is an individual thing too. It's like, hey, me and my wife we're, we're, we're going to be making this beef jerky, we're going to be eating this way, uh, and it's hard for individuals that, like I, have to prepare two separate meals. We have to like, acknowledge, like, like. That is a real life thing for lots of families, male, female doesn't matter. Like in the household, and there's some people that go full, like the whole family's, like we're all two feet in, and some spouses, or like kids, are like what, no way, I'm never, I'm not going to do that, and it's a tough, it's a tough real life situation to navigate and then like, also, like, what was the percentage? You said is hypercarnivore?
Speaker 2:I love this, by the way 70 to 75% is like the definition of nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that if you're you're covering that and again looking getting the, the good source of quality food and your body for function, cool, like I I've had a conversation with you too it's like I will have fruit every once in a while. Nobody's taken my carnivore card away, it's okay. I still keep it house because I like I will eat the entire thing. I mean, there's there's a ton of people out there that they're in the same boat as me. If you buy a thing of strawberries, you buy a thing of blueberries that's supposed to last the week. It's gone, I gone. Yeah, bananas, I like bananas. I do like bananas. If I'm out and and about, or like they're having a dessert, and there's a fruit and there's a banana, like I'll have a banana, like it's, I don't want the dessert because I don't feel like shit. I'll have a banana, have blueberries, some melon, melon with around it is bomb, that's awesome. Have you ever had that?
Speaker 1:no, I never have, oh yeah that's like good that's like an italian, like you know dish on the table when people oh yeah, that's like an Italian, like you know dish on the table when people are walking in. It's like you take a little bit of melon it could be cantaloupe and you wrap prosciutto around it and then you eat that. Get the sweet, the anyways Lovely. Another carnivore hack for people. If you really want to like, if you want to have some fruit but I know that if I buy it, I get really like I want to have it all in there. We've had the conversation of like, will a little bit of fruit trigger something in you, where that just is like the first step of you going off the rail. I've had to tackle that with myself of like, oh, I cheated with some fruit. Therefore, I can keep going Like it's like, I'm going to have this one banana. I'm not going to have any more. I'm going to make that decision because I know if I have two bananas, I want seven easy.
Speaker 2:I was just going to ask. If you get cravings afterwards, like if you have that banana in like 20, 30 minutes, are you like wanting something else?
Speaker 1:It's a yes and no. Like yes, I cause I I want it. Like I want, want the fruit, I want to keep continuously eating that I just feel like I've. It's not that I'm disciplined. I don't want to be like, oh, I'm so disciplined that that way I don't, but I just I acknowledge like I don't need that I don't need to keep going.
Speaker 1:There's no, it's, it's not a necessity for me. I'm using it as like, hey, I want a piece of fruit because, just because, like, I don't want the dessert that's on the table, I don't want cake. But if there's some fruit, I'll have some melon. Cool, a little bit cool, that's it. My little bit of bowl, that's fine. Um, even when I was iron man training, I like I tell people 95 of my diet was carnivore and I was doing, oh mad iron man training. I was real strict, but sometimes I would just want some yogurt with some blueberries in it.
Speaker 1:And it's like yeah, right, and that's it. And I kept it to that and then I didn't veer off of that and every once in a while that would be like quote unquote, treat, whatever you want to call it. But I think that that's a hard thing and some people have to realize I had to abstain. We talk about it, you know, are you a moderator or abstainer? I had to abstain for a very long time until that's something that I tackled with of like, do I really need this? And if it's going to cause me to go off the rails, if I have cookies, because I've had it on carnivore, like I've like, oh man, this person had cookie. Like whatever I indulge and I'm like shit, like I want to keep going. I give me the whole thing, man. Yeah, the pioneer pie, yeah exactly Infamous.
Speaker 2:Pioneer pie Dude. Yeah, pioneer day in Utah, the antagonist to the Mormon faith. The pioneer day is when the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Valley, so that's what all the Mormons celebrate. If you're not Mormon, you celebrate pine beer day, and I bought a peach pie and I ate a piece, and then I ate another piece, and then I ate another piece, and then I leveled the whole thing and then I just felt really terrible for a good day. Day and a half of no anxiety, no sleep.
Speaker 2:Cravings is the big thing, and so, yeah, what you said there as far as like moderating and abstaining, I think is really important for people to consider and understand which one they are. And I'll go way out of my way to say like fruit is usually not a problem. It is sugary, for sure. It's got a lot of fructose. You know it's not the best to have a lot of, but it's generally like a pretty safe plant food. I just know for me, when I eat the fruit, it is that 20 to 30 minutes later and I don't want another banana, I want candy bars and I'll drive by like ridiculous places like Taco Bell and be like oh my God, talk, that sounds good, like I just get cravings, that it's just.
Speaker 2:For me it is just easier to be an abstainer and say like, well, I just I don't. If I have a nibble here and there, it's fine, but I it's just yeah, it's easier for me to just avoid, I don't miss it that much. Um, so yeah, it's, it's. I think it's yeah, like we said, just really important to understand, like can you have a little bit? Is it driving further cravings? Or, like you said, you know a melon with prosciutto? Did you say Uh, uh, prosciutto?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It sounds really good. Um yeah, if you can have that and it's not really driving more cravings, I don't think it's a big deal. I again, I just if you think about a carnivore diet as a hyper carnivore nature, there's so much wiggle room that people can have other things and can just decide for themselves like what is worth it, what is not worth it. You know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of the last things before we kind of do wrap up, uh, with the, I kind of want to end with the question. But, uh, coffee like I, that's a, that's a big one. I get all the time it's like can you have coffee?
Speaker 2:I'm like dude yes, they can have coffee. I am a coffee fiend. I have coffee, probably too much coffee. I think there's worse things in the world, but you know it's fine. I don't feel like I have an issue with coffee one way or another. I do my coffee in the same kind of bulletproof way that I've done for probably a decade now, where I blend it up with maybe like a tablespoon of butter. I do MCT oil. I love the mental benefit that I get in particular from MCT oil. I have been putting salt in my coffee as well. I blend that up. It's a really savory, delicious kind of mix in the morning, and you know what it's like when you have to work early in the day.
Speaker 2:But you can't just stumble into a Zoom meeting and get going with your day on a Monday morning. You're performing, you're teaching or you're working with clients, and so you have to be on, you have to have good memory, you have to have good energy, and that's starting at 6am for us, and so that's something that, again, I've cut out before. I don't notice a huge difference. It's something that I really enjoy and so I keep it in. And yeah, I mean to everybody's consternation at some of these conferences you and I go to and Dr Chafee gets up and says you know, coffee is a plant food and you should probably avoid it. Maybe for some people that's true and maybe for him his tolerances are less than other people. But you know, I'd encourage people to try having it and not having it and see what you like and see if it's a net positive in your life.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, it's like you said earlier, like nobody's taking away your carnivore card and this is for you. Like nobody cares what you're eating. Like do you like this way of eating? Then you should try it. I think a lot of people should try it. Like we said earlier, like I think you're going to feel really good, I think you're going to have great energy. I see tons of people that benefit from it in weird ways. You should try it. But then at the end of the day, like nobody really cares that much about you, we all way too much and don't really care about other people, and that's really nice, that's very empowering and people can do whatever they like. So yeah, spices, condiments, coffee, an avocado, you know, garlic, the half onion with a burger patty, like sauteed, I just I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't see any need to get too worked up about that kind of thing. Caution note about anybody that's listening to this. That's like, oh, I'm going to try my coffee like that. I don't know if you've had an experience. I've tried to do the Bulletproof coffee but I've put too much MCT oil in there. Has that ever happened to?
Speaker 2:you, you need to go number two. Like one second ago, yeah, when I was first starting, I was back at the big corporate gym that we were working at and like I'd be training somebody and counting reps and like all of a sudden like oh, gotta go and I would like do this funny, like power walks to the bathroom and just try to get there in time. And I had I never. I yeah, I had some close calls. I'll just say that, oh, yeah, I uh, same I was.
Speaker 1:you know as teachers, you know you're teaching. Sometimes you're back to back and I started doing the Bulletproof Coffee and I'm in my first lesson, halfway through the lesson, like I can't leave that there's no other adults. I got fourth graders in the gym. I'm like this is going to be a photo. Finish between the passing period.
Speaker 1:I was like oh my God, and I realized I'm like it was the MCT. I couldn't figure it out at first and I was like what is going on? And it then it was. I'm like I realized like, oh, it's got to be the nct oil I was putting. I was like, yeah, if a little is good, a lot's better. Um, but yeah, don't put too much, just start a little dash at first and then build your way up.
Speaker 2:But build your way up, start with a teaspoon, see how you do and go from there.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it sounds like you also had some close calls photo finish, uh, I asked I I want to end with this I asked this question.
Speaker 1:Um, I had my friend lauren on the podcast and and I talked to her and she, uh, you know kettlebell enthusiast, uh opens up a kettlebell gym.
Speaker 1:Uh, she struggled with, um, a bunch of acl, you know surgeries, and she couldn't really really do soccer anymore to the level that she was accustomed to. And I asked her I was like, hey, like, if you can go back knowing the things that you know now in your life and experience, what would you tell, like your younger self and I, after I and she had like a pause and it was like she really thought about it, you know, and I thought about it after I had listed, re-listened the episode I go it, you know, and I thought about it after I had listed, re-listened the episode I go, you know what, what's something that I know now? And if I saw myself as a kid cause I feel like me and you had kind of the same upbringing of like we were really heavyset when we were younger Like what's something that you would tell yourself, you know, when you were a kid, knowing what things you know now, whether it be nutrition, uh, training or anything things you know now, whether it be nutrition, uh, training or anything.
Speaker 2:What a great question, man. Um, I love that. I I mean yeah, in hindsight, like, yeah, growing up as like the chubbier kid and buying the Husky clothes, watching my mom get diagnosed with breast cancer and eventually pass away from the breast cancer, you know, with all these ridiculous treatments that she was doing and we were eating a low fat diet at the time, and I mean, of course, I would go back and like, look at my high school self and say, like you know, you were athletic, you, you know, lost some weight from doing, you know, strength training and learn how to do that. I got a job at a gym as a teenager and played ice hockey and in high school and college and, you know, got to race bikes competitively and all that stuff. It was really fun. But, like, also recognizing like I was, I was asleep more often than not in my first period class. I was asleep more often than not in the class that I had right after lunch and it's just, you're eating so much nonsense, you know the school foods, coming home and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches of skim milk, watching my mom's cancer get worse Like, of course I would have gone back and said, like the best thing to do is to ignore the advice that's like clearly not working for any of us and eat meat.
Speaker 2:We didn't never avoided the meat, but it was never, you know, like the only thing or the main thing. I see a lot of um, younger people now, um, you see it a lot in the type one diabetes community, where you know these kids are diagnosed with type one diabetes and they're trying to manage this disease. It's nearly impossible when you're told to eat tons of carbohydrates and inevitably they find low carb and ketogenic and carnivore diets and these kids are like superhuman, even dealing with type one diabetes. They're like eating mostly meat and controlling their blood sugars and they are gaining weight and they are very athletic and they're very healthy, more so than normal population. So of course I would go back and tell myself like dude, you do not need to do these long training rides for cycling where you're consuming hundreds of grams of carbohydrates in a ride and eating these cookies you get from the grocery store and the gas stations that we would stop at, just feeling terrible, your digestion sucks. Of course I would go back and say you should have more meat. You should have more fat. These things are really good for you.
Speaker 2:I wonder what it would have been like I wonder if I could have performed at a higher level in ice hockey or competed at a higher level cycling. But also saying that like it's also pretty cool that the other day I'm at the ice rink and this other guy is like oh my gosh, I just turned 50. And like do you notice your body just feels so much different as you age. And to answer him honestly and say like kind of like, not, I just turned 41. I feel awesome. I perform at a way higher level now than I did 10 years ago when I was 30. And like I recover better and I have a decent muscle mass and like my body fat is controlled. And like I skate with 20 year old dudes and I'm like skating them down.
Speaker 2:So like, yes, I understand we age and it sucks, but I also feel very happy that I found this advice to begin with and I could plug into my life when I did, and to just know that my energy is awesome. I never get sunburned. My athlete's foot that I had chronically went away. I have not missed one single client session from being sick in nearly six years of being on carnivore Not a sniffle. I've not missed one session To think about all of that. It's pretty cool that I was able to find it whenever I did. But yeah, to to go back and maybe discover that when I was 15 or 20 and see what kind of a different life I would have had would have been cool to contemplate. But at the end of the day, it's nice that I found it when I did and, yeah, noticing the benefits up to today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would tell you, most people that run into you, you'd be like, they'd be like that, that guy's not 41. That guy ain't 41.
Speaker 2:My beard is a little grayer, that's for sure. But um, yeah, yeah, I it's just. It's very consistent with um. You know the people that you and I get to hang out with when we do these conferences and, like, when you get a group of people that is following some version of this advice and you feel that energy of an entire conference center filled with people that are thriving in life and feel very healthy and happy and just notice so many benefits, it's really quite powerful and awesome. And, yeah, just at the end of the day, just feel so grateful that I was able to find any of this to begin with. Pretty cool.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love it, and I always name drop you. Definitely, I wouldn't be doing the things that I'm doing now if it wasn't for you, so I do appreciate all the work that you do.
Speaker 1:Um, got to give it the you know, got to give it the flowers, whether they're due man, like with all the conversations we had, and I'm like, hey, like this is it's been, it's a life, it's life-changing, like it was life-changing for me if I was going on that same path or if I didn't find somebody that's like, yeah, man, you can do this. And some people told me no, I don't know where I would be. Yeah, I don't know, I have no idea I would be going down the same path that I was yo-yo, dieting and and um, having a terrible relationship with the food, and um, but, yeah, kudos to you and you, you and you know, keep doing the work. And this is just, it's good to see you again, it's good to chat, it's great to see you.
Speaker 2:As I told you that that coaching session I've told you so many times. I did nothing in that coaching session. You just needed me to hold up a mirror in front of the camera and you just say what you're going to do and like, yep, you're just going to go do that and you're going to kick ass and do really great. And so I'm so grateful that um again not only was able to find this information, but both of us, you know, getting certified on that side and being able to work with people and getting to meet amazing people like you that are just my friends, that my wife knows is my kettlebell people or whatever Like it's just the kettlebell guy, the kettlebell guy. Oh yeah, tony, the kettlebell guy.
Speaker 1:Was that the guy that has the great stories about april fool's day with his parents?
Speaker 2:like, yeah, man, it's coming up, I gotta think of another one.
Speaker 1:I gotta think of something different I can't wait.
Speaker 2:I think I should have you back on the episode to do an april fool's day special. We'll just talk about that. I think that would be really good practical information for people. You've had some epic ones in the past.
Speaker 1:We will, we will chat. Yeah, I have some in the back burner. I'm trying to. I might be. Uh, it's actually in the next few weeks. I have to decide which way I want to go. One's very elaborate, one's not as much, but like it's going to be, I'm going to get my ma trouble you have to go through.
Speaker 2:It benefits the rest of us to hear the stories afterwards. So don't be selfish. Go the elaborate route, go all in whatever it takes, you have to pay the time. It's good for the rest of us. So again, don't be selfish.
Speaker 1:Perfect, will do, will do, and then anybody that wants to talk to you connect with you. Where can they find Casey Ruff?
Speaker 2:Oh man, website's the easiest place. You can just go to our website. We try to keep everything right there. So the website is myboundlessbodycom. Boundless Body is the name of the business. My wife and I started during the pandemic when we lost our jobs at the big corporate gym and, yeah, the first thing anybody will see is not only like where they can find us on social media or find the podcast. They can find a bunch of content I made this summer by doing a seminar series that I taught in my neighborhood, but also you can just click a book now button to set up a 30 minute consultation and we work with people all over the world and anybody who wants to just discuss different options Maybe it's somebody like you that already knew what they wanted to do but want some validation or just have some questions. We love working with people all over the place. So, yeah, people can just go to our website, myboundlessbodycom, and they can find everything there.
Speaker 1:Awesome, We'll be all in the show notes. Casey, thanks for coming again being a triple guest.
Speaker 2:It's an honor. It's so great chatting with you always and, yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for everybody listening to another episode of the Primal Foundations Podcast.